Friends
‘Friends’ is an American TV show that first aired in 1994, running until 2004. The series was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman with the themes of careers, love the struggle of searching and being afraid of commitment, and feeling a sense of security and also the idea that friendships eventually transform into family.
The television series was created at low point of Kauffman and Crane’s careers. They were in a place where their future was uncertain after another show they created, ‘Family Values’, was cancelled by CBS. The creators were struggling to find where to go from here and Kauffman described the feeling as a question mark which lead here into writing a 7 page script for a show named ‘Insomnia Café’ A television company. NBC bought the idea, and they started creating the script. under a different title, of ‘Friends Like Us.’ After NBC read the new script they bought it up again, once again changing the same, this time to ‘Six of One’ which was revealed in an issue of ‘Vanity Fair’ former executive named Karey Burke. This wasn’t the last change though, before the show premiered, they changed the shows title to ‘Friends’ and not long after the show premiered, it began to quickly gain popularity, being seen by close to 22 million people. The constant change of the show’s title wasn’t the only changed, while in the early stages, they created a romance that was never brought to scenes between Monica and Joey as they thought they were the characters with the most chemistry, however it then became Ross and Rachel to become the popular couple in the show.
Deciding on a name for the show wasn’t the only thing that got complicated in the making of ‘Friends’. The creators also had a hard time casting, this being discovered in an article titled ‘The Oral History of Friends’. Courtney Cox is well known for playing the role of Monica Geller, however she had originally been given the part of Rachel Green, when she told Kauffman ”She wanted to do Monica, not Rachel.” She was offered the role as Rachel as the creator, David Crane, later revealed that they had written the role of Monica to have a very different and darker personality. They wanted the character to appear edgy and very snarky, but after Cox auditioned, they instead loved the personality that she brought to it and decided to go with the nicer personality for Monica, and Courtney got the role, with Jennifer Aniston being casted as Rachel. The creators also struggled casting the role of Chandler Bing. Matthew Perry, who did eventually get the role for Chandler, was one of the first actors in the list for the role of Chandler, Kauffman has mentioned, however he was set to play in a pilot show on Fox named ‘LAX 2194’ so instead, they brought in other actors to audition. David Crane believed that the Role of Chandler Bing would be the easiest to cast as he had the sarcastic personality and the most jokes but no one impressed them. Matthew Perry was later released from the Fox pilot and got the role as Chandler.
Chandler Bing
The role I have been given for this project was the role of Chandler Bing. To prepare myself to take on this role, I made sure I knew the different characteristics that he had. I began this by watching a few episodes of Friends and noting that he was a very sarcastic and also deadpan character, which helped me on the delivery of the jokes. I also researched a lot about his character, finding that he has a fun personality, he can come across as hopeless, often feeling lonely and desperate to find love. He also uses his personality as a defense and coping mechanism after growing up with divorced parents. Chandler cares a lot about his friends, and would take risks for them. He is closest with his roommate Joey Tribbiani and Ross Geller, who he went to college with. This helped us when it came to blocking the scenes, as we placed the characters who were the closest next to each other to show all the different levels of friendship amongst the friends. Chandler is a smart person, which is shown by his job in Statistical Analysis and Data Reconfiguration but he is really unhappy there. He stays as they keep giving him promotions. He does eventually quit this job and secures a job in Advertising through a former colleague of Monica’s. While he tries his best to cover it up, Chandler has a fear of committing in relationships meaning he has had the least amount of relationships out of all the friends. He does, however begins dating Monica and they eventually get married.
Doing this research helped not only how I decided to characterize Chandler but helped as a whole group interact with each other as we were in character. It also helped us understand the background of the show and the main goal for the show to come across.